The field of the present invention relates to balloon catheters for expanding an opening within an intraluminal passage, such as a blood vessel or an artery.
The use of a balloon catheter to expand openings within blood vessels or arteries is well known within the field of vascular surgery. One example of their use is in angioplasty, where plaque has built up on the walls of an artery restricting blood flow. In this procedure, a catheter with a balloon is inserted into the artery and the balloon is inflated with a saline solution to compress the plaque against the artery wall, thereby enlarging the opening. However, if the plaque has hardened, it can be difficult for a simple balloon to achieve the desired compression. Furthermore, if the balloon is over-inflated to achieve the desired compression, it can burst causing complications to the patient.
To overcome this problem, in some situations, balloons with scoring edges are used to focus pressure on a single point and achieve better compression of the plaque, or to achieve similar compression with less inflation pressure. Despite the use of this technique, a scoring balloon may be insufficient to achieve the desired compression of plaque. Furthermore, the addition of a scoring edge increases the cross-sectional area of the catheter, which limits it use in small or stenotic blood vessels.